Subtlety
by Pantherfang
Summary: Grief is the price we pay for love. \
1. Chapter 1

"_The best thing for being sad," replied Merlin, beginning to puff and blow, "is to learn something. That's the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then — to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the only thing for you. Look what a lot of things there are to learn."_

—T.H White, _The Once and Future King_

I read in the Lifestyle section of the newspaper the other day that everyone corresponds to an element of the universe. Some people are fire, others are water…you get the idea.

_**I'm too tired to drive anywhere, anyway, right now**_

Axel would be fire. In fact, the more I think about this, the more it fits. Of course he has all the trademarks that people usually associate with fire; bright, blazing red hair and a fierce, passionate nature that simultaneously warms and sears you. But it goes much further than that. Whereas most people tend to break under pressure, Axel thrives on it, like when you drop wood onto a campfire. He flares up, grows stronger and brighter. And when you force too much onto him, he becomes wild and destructive, burning everyone around him. I guess that's part of the reason why we no longer see eye-to-eye the way we once did; because the last time he went mad like that was the time I needed him sane the most.  
I may be being unfair. In fact, it's a great flaw of mine, to expect too much from people. There is every chance that the reason why Axel lost himself was the same reason why I needed his help. That was really only the beginning of it all, anyway. Eventually, just like a real fire when it's buried, he crashes. Not a single ember left, not a touch of heat or light. He's just dead inside, and it takes a great deal to re-light him.

_**Do you care if I stay?**_

Next up is Namine, and she would probably be really interested in this, because Namine is a big believer in the Zodiac and spirits and that sort of stuff. If I were to ask her what element she thought she was, she'd probably say she was earth. The mother of our little crèche, who supports us all and keeps us safe. I think, though, that she's most likely to be water. Because Namine has many faces. Sometimes she's gentle and sweet and soothing, like flowing water, but other times she's cold and distant and unyielding, like ice. Namine is absolutely a vital part of our group, but she hurts us just as much as she nurtures us. She and Axel also have never gotten along and they would probably vaporize each other if they were locked in a room for too long. Namine tells me that Axel is mentally unstable and can't be trusted. I just lean back and remember all the times she wasn't exactly a pinnacle of psychological health herself.

_**You can put on your bathing suits**_

Myself? I don't know, really. Perhaps I would be air. Made up of almost nothing, which is how I feel a lot of the time these days, ever since Xion's death. I am what kindles Axel back to life when he's nothing but embers, and I am the one who carries Namine when she turns to mist and the one who dries her cheeks when she becomes tears. I can be harsh, and I am deceptive. Sometimes I feel myself to be a storm-bringer—storms of bad luck.

_**And I'll try to find something on this thing that means nothing without**_

Rounding off our little group is Arashi. And, in a departure from the traditional four elements that most people use, I'd say if she's any one thing at all, Arashi is lightning. Always different. You never know what she'll do or where she'll go. You watch for her coming, half-afraid and half in awe. And when she does appear, she leaves you momentarily dazzled and a little bit breathless.

_**Losing my breath**_

* * *

I don't own Kingdom Hearts or anything to do with them.


	2. Chapter 2

_Love is a fire. But whether it is going to warm your hearth or burn down your house, you can never tell._  
-Joan Crawford 

* * *

Fire. Flame, _feu, fogo, feuer, fuoco, kasai, ignis._

Fire is the medium where a flammable material is exposed to an oxidizer and a source of heat. The heat brings the material to the temperature required for it to combust, most commonly known as the flash point. This causes a rapid chain reaction where the fuel begins to rapidly oxidize, producing a great deal of heat. If you're using oxygen as your oxidizer, which most people do, then you also need a source of gravity, to keep the heat in through a convection current.

The actual flame we see with our eyes is the chemical reaction of the different gases and solids reacting with each other and producing different kinds of visible light. A flame can be any colour you choose, just so long as you have the right material and temperature. For instance, most of the fires we know tend to be shades of red or orange. This is because the materials we use as fuel—wood and fossil fuels like coal—are mostly carbon, and that is the colour of light that carbon emits when it burns. The shades depend on how efficiently the fire is burning; a cooler fire will be mainly yellow, while a hotter fire can be almost white. A flame can be blue when there are no solid substances to change the colour—the fire is essentially burning the air, which produces a blue colour. These are also the hottest fires as the fire burns much more efficiently than they do when choked with soot. (This is why you often see blue at the heart of fires, when the solid particles have all been burned away.)

But fires can be other colours. It all depends on the kinds of elements in the fuel. Scientists often use fire as a method of determining the presence of certain metals. For instance, if a fire burns green, then they know that there is copper in whatever substance they're testing.

But none of this is really interesting.

There are all sorts of awesome facts about fire.

Like, for instance, it's possible to have a flame that's at such a low temperature you can hold it in your hand. Lighter fluid or kerosene can be used to produce a flame that you can keep a hold of for as long as you have fuel for it. Scientists can also make a flame that has a core temperature of below zero—that is, it would burn your hand because it's so cold. Unfortunately this can only be done in very controlled conditions as getting anything wrong can lead to some rather large explosions.

Or the fact that a gallon of natural gas can produce an explosion bigger than thirty sticks of dynamite.

Or the somewhat more sobering fact that, provided it has exponential fuel, a fire will double in size every minute if left to its own devices.

Or the fact that Earth is the only known planet where fire can actually burn naturally. Other planets don't have enough oxygen in their air.

There's a coal seam north of Sydney that has been burning for 500,000 years.

Spontaneous combustion is very real. In fact, pistachios have been classified as a dangerous trade good because they're so likely to burst into flame. (This is because pistachios contain a lot of natural oils, and also decay rapidly, which produces heat.)

But I think the coolest thing about fire is that it doesn't exist as we think of it. Fire is an event, not a substance. It's hard to explain, but think of a tree burning. You're watching everything that made up the tree, all the energy and nutrients that were shaped into wood and leaves, being transformed back into two of its most basic states: light and heat. You're watching a tree become unmade. That's one of the reasons why, when I die, I want my body to be burned so thoroughly that there are no ashes. Because I want to become a pure force of the universe again, all ready to join up with something else, and I don't want any bits of me to be left behind.

Sorry. This probably isn't what you wanted to hear. But I like facts, and science in general. Because science makes sense. Science can explain things to you, provided you want to listen. Some people turn to religion when they want to find answers, but I found my comfort in books and the thought processes of a hundred thousand other minds. Science is all about finding answers, and I really want to discover some of my own. Whenever I feel like I'm never going to get there, all I have to do is think about great scientists like Galileo and Kepler who struggled with the questions of their lives and answered them.

We didn't burn Xion. She had always talked about wanting to be remembered, about having a monument devoted to her. She would never have wanted to go back into the universe as something else. We didn't have the hundreds of thousands of dollars required to build a statue or dedicate a hospital wing, but there's a bench in the park where she used to walk with Sora and myself nearly every day. There's also a gravestone in the Hollow Bastion Cemetery. Sora didn't like that; the Hollow Bastion Cemetery was intended for the people who had died in the wars and the concentration camps. But I wanted to put her in a place where she would be seen by other people, where there was a chance that a random stranger would read the inscription on her tombstone and think about her, even if only for a few seconds. Sora had no argument against that, but it still troubled him. A lot of things worried Sora, particularly things involving money, though he never told me or anyone else about them.

How do I know, then? Well, because one day I became subtle, followed him, and found out.

I suppose it all began about a week after Xion's funeral. Sora had put his foot down and forced me back to high school, even though there was nothing I wanted to do less. He insisted that I needed to get an education and make it through some sort of higher learning so I could have a future, warning me that the days were fast approaching when I couldn't expect him to be around to look after me.

That's really not why I didn't want to go back. I didn't mind school, even though I had never been very good at it. It just wasn't something that interested me, so I kind of coasted through it, scraping through with C-grades and "Satisfactory" boxes checked on my reports. The same comments kept appearing in the teachers' remarks…_doesn't apply himself…shows no interest in following goals…_you get the idea. Basically, I was bored silly and everyone knew it. So fear of education was not one of the factors behind my reluctance to return to Twilight Town Secondary College. No, I didn't want to go back to school because PEOPLE. ALWAYS. TALK.

It doesn't matter how painful or controversial a subject might be; someone's bound to be nattering about it, offering their opinions on something they don't have the faintest idea about. And so to you, dear reader, if you're still here, I make a plea. _**Please, please, please,**_**if something bad happens to someone who's not your friend and you hear about it, just keep it to yourself and let them have their privacy. **Because _that _is the worst thing. The whispers. The talking in the corridors, the sly glances, the "and my Mum said that the _police _were involved…" Ugh.

Not that Sora would ever understand. He was home schooled, and he went from being home schooled to working in a laboratory, and thus has no idea of how cruel kids can be. I don't think he was ever on speaking terms with more than five or six people throughout his childhood. Sora lives in a bright, beautiful bubble where everyone is happy and would never dream of hurting each other. I can't decide whether I want him to come out of it or if I want to go in and join him in that.

Anyway.

It was a Monday, early autumn, one week since Xion's funeral and two days after my fifteenth birthday. Sora didn't remember it, but then I almost forgot myself. Birthdays were never a huge deal in the Delaqua household, because my parents hated the thought of anyone growing older, particularly their children. We got a cake and the present of our choice, and that was it. So I don't think I missed out on much even if my older brother had remembered.

I approached the school gate, which looked rather nice in the morning sunlight. Twilight Town Secondary College is an old school, built and designed by a charitable architect, which means (alongside leaky roofs and terrible insulation) a lot of unique architecture. It was too cold for people to cluster about outside the way they did in summer, so instead they chose to chatter in the library and hallways. This annoyed me, because it meant two things: the places that were usually quiet were no longer so, and secondly it meant that I had to walk past half the school to get to my year's quadrant. I saw eyes widen and heard voices hush.  
"Oh my God, is that _Roxas?_"  
"Roxas? Is that the one who—"  
"Yeah! I shared that link with you on Facebook…"  
And so forth. I won't bore you with each and every thing that was said to me, even though I can actually remember it all perfectly, thanks to my memory exercises. Suffice to say, I pushed my way through the crowd and sank into the place I usually sat, at the cold metal table beneath the oak tree. The branches were flush with the fires of autumn, and I wondered bitterly why things always seem so beautiful right before they die.

"Hey—hey, ROXAS!"  
I turned. It was Axel, of course, dashing towards me with an enormous grin. People jumped out of his way as they went past, because that's what you do with Axel. You move. He won't.  
"How are you feeling?" he started, dumping his bag alongside mine. "I would have called, but I was out of credit and my Dad was being a total shithead and wouldn't give me any more money. It's good to see you back at school, though, eh?"  
It was far too early in the morning for me to cope with Axel's liveliness, even though I knew he was trying to make me happy. He was offering me his warmth, combating the numbness I felt inside. It didn't work.

"I'm OK," I lied, and Axel faltered a little bit. He looked me over with his amazingly green, catlike eyes.  
"That's good," is all he said in reply, and he sat down at the table, resting his back against the tree and brushing his shoulder with mine. It's a male equivalent of a hug, I suppose.  
"How are _you_?" I asked before he can fire up again. Axel chewed his lip a bit.  
"I…I'm better. Seriously," he added, seeing my expression. "The shrink put me on some new pills, and I'm gonna take them this time, I promise. No matter what." He sighed and touched my arm again. "There's been a lot of talk."  
"I heard," I said cautiously. "But you know none of it is true. Or even close to being true."  
"Yeah, yeah. Still. Had to deactivate the Facebook account because people kept going on about it. My Mum and Dad, though, they're the worst. Shit, they keep suggesting I talk to the police."  
"What does your shrink say?"  
"I haven't told her anything and I'm not going to, Roxas. That's the honest truth, right there."  
I didn't know why he was so desperate to convince me that he isn't going to talk. It didn't really matter to me if the whole universe knews. People would still babble on about it either way. And maybe it would have done Axel some good, talking through it with his psychologist. Lord knows it was a battle just to get him to go to one.  
I didn't say anything, though, and for once Axel didn't pressure me. He and I just leaned back and watched the ebb and flow of the student body. I saw little Year Eights, in their first year of high school, clustered together, their unbroken voices far too high and piercing for my ears. Once upon a time I might have gone over to them and silenced them personally, but even thinking about it required too much energy. I slipped into a state somewhere between dozing and wakefulness, wondering if any of them would ever have to deal with half the shit Axel and I had faced.

"If you're not planning on doing anything, then at least come inside. You'll catch your death in this cold." That scolding voice belonged to Namine, of course. She was neatly dressed as always with not a speck of dust on her uniform. The sunlight shimmers on her white-blonde hair, and for a moment I was forcibly reminded of how pretty she is. That's one of the worst parts of adolescence, I've always found. It makes you think about the girls who've been a part of your life for so long in very different ways, and those ways just leave you uncomfortable.  
She braced one hand on her hip and offered me the other, and as I took it she pulled me into a hug. She smelled like celery, God alone knows why. I quite like celery, though. It has a lovely scent, sharp and clean. When I mentioned this to my Dad when I was a lot younger he nearly choked on his cigarette. It turns out the scent of celery has been used as an aphrodisiac since the Greeks and it's supposed to be particularly attractive to women, as it contains the pheromone androstenone (also found in boar saliva and human sweat). So I guess Dad's reasoning was that if I like the smell of celery so much, I must be a homosexual. Or a woman. One of the two.

"Oh, Roxas," Namine murmured as she pulled my head to her shoulder. "I'm sorry about everything. I really am. But why didn't you answer my calls?"  
"I didn't feel like talking to anyone," I said, resting my hand a few centimetres off her back. Axel was looking away from us pointedly, tapping his foot.  
"Still, you could have sent me a text to say you were all right." She let me go and picked at the cuff on her shirt. "I've been worried sick."  
"And the world revolves around you, Namine," Axel said, standing up abruptly. "It _is _freezing. Can we go inside?"  
Namine ignored him. "Do you want to go inside, Roxas?" she asked softly. I shrugged and Axel clicked his fingers at me before leading the way. My other friend gave me a slight frown before taking my hand and following him.

I didn't really want her holding my hand, but at the same time her heat kept it warm, so I never said anything about it. Instead, I asked a different question.  
"Is Arashi here today?" The last member of our little gang kind of picks and chooses when she wants to go to school. She must either have the best parents in the world or the worst. I haven't managed to find out, not in all my four years of knowing her.  
"Not that I know of," Axel said, coming to a stop outside the library. "Haven't seen her, anyway." Namine looked like she was about to speak, but before she can do so the siren blared.

Too loud. Far, far too loud. It makes my ears hurt just to remember it.

First up on that Monday morning was what we affectionately call our bullshit subject, Food Science. Twilight Town SC requires all its students to take six subjects, but I only wanted to do five serious ones so I picked a blow-off class for the last. It feels like a wiser choice every day, because in Food Science I could just blank out while the teacher put on a video about how to cut juliennes and sharpen knives.

Sharpened Knives. Hah. Don't worry, you'll understand why I found that amusing soon enough.

The second lesson is Physics, though, a class that I chose because Namine was in it. She wants to be an engineer because they make a lot of money and they help people. "Their job is to solve problems," she always says when I bring it up. Physics is mainly applied mathematics, something that I've never found difficult, and it's also a somewhat quiet class due to its large proportion of quiet people.  
As I walked through the door the teacher, Mr Stocolleti, caught my eye. I don't have any favourite teachers, but he's one of the better ones mainly because he leaves me alone and I leave him alone. This was the first time he'd actually shown any interest in me, and that was almost enough to make me turn right back around and walk out.

But he didn't say anything except, "Welcome back, Mr Delaqua."  
I sank into my chair and prepared to blank my thoughts again, but something new made me turn my head. There was a piece of raw amethyst rock on one of the experiment benches near the window. I had never seen it before, so I assumed that it was for the younger kids, using sparkly stuff to try and get them into science. It sat just beneath the window and I suddenly had an overwhelming, powerful desire to just go over there and throw it through the window as hard as I could. I wanted to see if the pieces of glass and stone would shimmer in the sunlight the way dewdrops do on the lawn.

"Why do you think that is, Mr Delaqua?"  
Shit. Without realizing it, I had sat up in my seat, and that caught Stocolleti's eye. I leaned back down, my strange flare of energy rapidly fading, but he wouldn't let me go that easily. I cleared my throat and looked at the floor. "Sorry, sir, what was the question again?"  
"I said, why do you think that the Heisenberg's Principle applies to so much in physics?"  
The what? "Um, sir, I haven't been here for the last few weeks, so I'm not really sure…" Namine was shaking her head at me, her hand pressed to her forehead, and I guessed that his question was intended to be rhetorical.  
In a surprising flash of coolness, rather than chewing me out for not paying attention, Stocolleti took off his glasses and polished them for a few moments before responding.

"The Heisenberg's Principle is, at core, the phenomenon that humans have an unavoidable tendency to influence a situation simply through observation alone. For example, in many experiments involving atoms, the results in an experiment that is seen—recorded—is dramatically different from the results in an unobserved experiment."  
I frowned. "Sir, are you saying that atoms or whatever somehow _know _that they're being watched? But that's not possible."  
"So it would seem. On a quantum level, at least, the Principle is easily explained, according to some scientists. When we look at a thing, we are actually sending out small photons from our eyes and our brains are reading what's being bounced back. Photons are relatively the same size as most atoms and they can move very quickly, certainly at a great enough velocity to impede an atom. Whether that's the whole story, though, others are less certain."  
I didn't know why I find this so interesting. But I did. "The whole story, sir?"  
"Well, you of all people would probably know this, Mr Delaqua. Haven't you realized that everything from humans to computers seem to act differently when they know they're being watched?"

I think it was the last sentence that got me hooked into science, because he was exactly right on both counts. Later, I would go on to find out just how dead-on he was.

"But that's people, sir," some genius at the front piped up. "People are conscious beings who will modify their behaviour to suit the situation."  
The teacher polished his glasses again. "Pray tell me, what does _consciousness _have to do with anything? Consciousness is just a less poetic way of saying _I think therefore I am. _There already is rather solid proof that we all live in a giant simulation in any case, so it's somewhat beside the point. Atoms are certainly not conscious, yet they can be affected by our observations. You tell me how many times you've tried to fix a computer, walked out to find a technician, then came back to discover it's repaired itself while you were gone from the room. Some animals will eat their offspring if they are watched while giving birth. The Heisenburg's Principle is simply a neat, ordered way of stating that there is no such thing as an unbiased observation, because the very act of observing lends a bias. So to speak."

I think he lost the entire class (except me, of course) when he started talking about computer simulations, judging by the glazed expressions. He seemed to realize this, because he leaned back in his chair and his voice softened.  
"I think this is somewhat more difficult material than the course requires me to teach to you. But what I really meant to say is this. Don't make an assumption about anything based solely on your senses. Sooner or later you're going to be duped." He glanced down at his desk. "Turn to page 152 and start taking notes and answering the questions until the end of the chapter, please. If you don't finish today, it's homework."

I didn't turn into a science nerd in the space of one lesson, obviously. I had missed two weeks' worth of school and I had paid very little attention to my classes before that. For the first time, though, I read the textbook thoroughly, and even though I didn't understand a lot of the concepts it talked about I got enough to know that what it was essentially describing was the laws of the universe. And that fascinated me, because if I could understand the way the universe worked, I could maybe figure out why everything over the past year had happened.

At the end of class I gathered up my books and bag and was about to walk out the door when Stocoletti stopped me. "Dare I say you were interested in my class today, Roxas?" It was the first time he'd ever used my first name.  
I swallowed. "Yes, sir."  
"Quantum physics was always one of the most popular scientific topics with the public. Mainly because many think it shows how little we know about the workings of our universe, and they use it as proof that there is room left in the cosmos for a higher power."  
I looked up at him. His expression was unreadable, but I thought I grasped his meaning. "I'm not looking for evidence of God, sir."  
"Far be it from me to judge you if you were. Spiritual searches do bring comfort and revelation to a great many people who find themselves in dark places. Of course, there are other paths of discovery."  
If you were to look up the meaning of "enigmatic" I'm pretty sure you'd find a small thumbnail image of Mr Stocoletti printed beneath it. I think maybe it was his confusing way of letting me know that he'd heard the rumours and was offering me his help.

"Can you teach me how things work? Why stuff happens?" It burst out of me before I could hold the words inside.  
My Physics teacher paused for a moment, before going over to the cupboard, opening it, and pulling out a textbook. He handed it back to me. It was the Year Eight science book, one I sold years ago.  
"You're going to have to start at the beginning," he said, almost kindly. "Fortunately, if you're dedicated, it won't take you long to catch up. Read the book and come to me if you have any questions. I'd also recommend you start paying attention in your Chemistry and Maths classes. They'll help, too."  
Hesitantly I took the book. The cover is garishly yellow and has a rocket ship on it. I flick to the first chapter. Yes, it was still the same—all about how to set up an experiment and what footwear you should use in a lab. The other chapters, though, seemed to cover everything from the reproduction of flowers to the periodic table.  
"Thank you, sir," I told him, slipping the book into my bag. "I'll…do my best." I was about to leave the room when he interrupted me a second time.  
"Roxas. A wiser person than I am said that one of the few things we can do to change the way we feel about the world is to change the way we think about it." He was already sitting down at his desk, ready for his next class. "It's a start, anyway."

I just nodded and headed down the hallway. Namine caught me up about halfway to my next class, Maths, which she didn't share (being in a higher-level one) but Axel did.  
"What was that about, Roxas? Were you in trouble?"  
"No," I told her. "He, um, he just wanted to give me the work I've missed over the past two weeks." Two weeks I've been away from school. It seems so much longer.  
Namine nodded, seeming to accept this. "It wasn't fair of him to single you out like that. It's not your fault you weren't here." Actually, it was exactly my fault, but I understood her point.  
"It's OK. Seriously, I didn't mind. It's actually all more interesting than I first thought. You should really get your next class, it must have started by now."  
Namine gave me yet another quick hug and dashed down the hallway, leaving me shaking my head and walking more sedately to Maths.

I was only about five minutes late, but you would have thought I'd skipped the entire lesson from the glare the Maths teacher gave me. Luckily, she's always thought I was just another useless delinquent who gains nothing from punishment, so I escaped detention.  
Even with my new resolve, mathematics didn't grab me the way physics had done, though it was surprisingly peaceful to just lose myself in numbers and working out on paper for a while. Axel had been banned from sitting next to me since the third day of Year Eleven after the paper incident, but he kept trying to catch my eye all the same. I refused to look at him and focussed on my Maths textbook instead, trying to figure it out without having to ask anyone. Luckily, today we were working on simulations, which is very easy once you figure out how to input random sequences into your calculators. I made a mental note to get Sora to run through the more difficult mathematics when I got home.

When the bell rang for recess, Axel was by my side before the teacher had even dismissed us. He hefted my bag over his shoulder as we walked to the quadrant, grunting slightly at the weight.  
"Jesus, Roxas, what have you got in here, bricks?"  
"No, just all my textbooks. I took them out of my locker before…before I left and they've assigned that locker to someone else now. So I have to carry them until they give me a new one." I held out my hand for it, but he shook his head at me, causing the wind to pluck at his fiery spikes of hair.  
"Oh, Axie, how nice of you to carry your girlfriend's things. Who says chivalry is dead?" That came, of course, from the biggest asshole known to mankind, Seifer. Axel instantly shoved my bag at me and stormed over to Seifer, who started to look a little concerned. As well he should. I could still see the scar on his cheekbone from when Axel had slammed his head through the window. I have no idea why, even after he was in hospital for a week, he still felt the urge to taunt Axel.

But then, I didn't understand why Axel kept rising to his bait. At least, I didn't at the time. Later, when I learned how to be subtle, I would find out. Suffice to say I just wondered why Axel made such a big deal out of Seifer implying that we were homosexual. It didn't offend me, any more than it would insult me to be called black or a girl. He was just wrong. To the best of my knowledge he was wrong, anyway. Axel went through girlfriends all the time and I had never found myself becoming attracted to men.  
Still, I kind of wanted to see someone else get hurt for a change, so I hung back and didn't say anything. In my defence, I doubt my input would have been appreciated by either Axel or Seifer. I just watched Axel advance on Seifer and idly noted that Axel now had a slit knife in his hand. Hey, Seifer should have been grateful it wasn't a gun, as it had been in previous confrontations. Who knows how that would have ended, because the duty teacher had picked up the scent of violence and was heading this way. In the days before Xion, that wouldn't have stopped Axel, but on this occasion he put the knife back in his pocket with a snarl. I guess his new pills did work after all.

Seifer and his cronies took the opportunity to melt away into the crowd as the duty teacher appeared, frowning. I all but dragged Axel to our spot under the oak tree.  
"The hell was that, Axel?" I snapped. "Why the fuck did you bring a goddamn knife to school after what happened last time? Are you seriously that retarded?"  
"Don't fucking lecture me, Roxas," Axel growled back. "At least I fucking did something."  
"Did something about what?"  
"About _what? _About _what? _He was calling us fucking fags, that's what!"  
"So? Who the hell cares? You know it's not true and so does he. All he wanted to do was mess with you, and it worked! Don't waste a brain cell on what that mutant says."  
"Yeah, well, we're not all paragons like you, Rox." He started to dig through his bag for his recess. I had my own, but I didn't feel like eating. I could see Namine approaching us, and Axel abruptly said, "Do me a favour and don't tell the drama queen. Or Arashi, either."  
"I won't," I just said and leaned back against the tree.

It was going to be a long day. The first of many, I might add. Still, some good came out of it. Later on that day I would learn how to be subtle.


	3. Chapter 3

It happened when I was in the library at lunchtime, avoiding people. Nobody would have thought to find me in the library—hell, I didn't even know it was open at lunchtimes until I'd been at high school for a year. I was flicking through some physics books in the non-fiction section for no particular reason when a bunch of girls chattered their way into the aisle next to me. They were Year Eights, I think, from their voices. Yes, girls have voice breaks as well; theirs are just not as noticeable as in boys. It's also a cultural thing—younger children are expected to sound more high-pitched, and older adolescents are meant to sound deeper, so they do.

At first I wasn't really listening to them, as I was firmly locked into my own little realm of self-pity, in a phase Xion always called "mumping." The girls' voices were so loud and shrill, though, that they punctured the bubble I was attempting to raise around myself. So I had little choice. I could sort of see them through the gaps in the books, but I they didn't see me. I know that for a fact.

"…And, and, and so Brittany _said _that he had been cheating on him with Selphie, and that she—Brittany— never wanted to see him again." Fact: Females do speak more quickly than males, and they can process sound faster as well. The female brain devotes more brain cells to communication than does the male.  
"Well obviously that's the right thing to do. God, I can't imagine how pissed off I would be if I caught my boyfriend with someone else. I'd kill him."  
"Seriously though, what was Selphie thinking? That Alex was gonna dump his girlfriend for her? Have you _seen _her? She looks nine. No good looking guy's gonna walk around with her in public unless he's a paedo."  
"Selphie's just a slut. Doubt she was thinking anything."

I stopped listening once they reached the word _slut. _They used to call Xion that. I hated the word then and I hate it now.  
Instead, I focussed on the little gaps of darkness between the books on the shelf, where the fluorescent lighting doesn't reach. I looked for things in there: spiders, dust motes, who cares. I just wanted to find something that no one else had.  
All of a sudden, I did.

It felt like someone had poured a bit of cool water down my back—not too cold, just cool. The girls' voices dimmed a little, as did the lights, before returning to their normal power. I realized then that I had been holding my breath, and I exhaled slowly. For a few minutes I just breathed in and out until I reached a level where I really didn't have to think about anything. It was the calmest I'd felt in years, and I felt brave enough to return to the grass oval, where Namine and Axel would be searching for me.

So I stepped out of my aisle, and I realized two things: one, that the chatty girls had gone and two, that someone was very quietly trying not to cry, and failing, in another aisle nearby. I took a quick glance into that aisle and saw a girl. She was very small, even for a Year Eight, and wore her nut-brown hair in the old-fashioned style, arranged into three curls. I guessed that this must be Selphie, for she truly did look several years younger than she must have been. Something deep within my chest twisted painfully, and I swallowed.

In my experience, people don't like to be watched when they are trying to pull themselves together, so I tried to back away as quietly as possible. My hip collided with one of the shelves, producing an audible and painful _thunk._ The girl's head came up and she looked directly at me with light green eyes. I froze, an apology already on my lips, but without a word her head drooped again and a tear dribbled down her cheek. I took a few steps towards her, wondering if perhaps she wanted me to comfort her, but without warning she stood up and stormed towards me, her face set. I stood still and clutched the shelf next to me for support in case she had decided to slap me or something. But no, she kept walking, so I instinctively shifted. Not fast enough—her elbow jabbed into the soft flesh of my side, and I bit my lip.

Selphie froze. "Who's there?" Even her voice was childish. I was about to tell her my name when the structure of her question struck me as odd. It was almost as though…  
"Great," Selphie muttered. "Now I'm going insane. Fantastic." She rubbed her elbow and kept walking without the slightest glance backwards at me.  
…she couldn't see me.

I quickly moved over to the first person I could find, some Year Eight boy flicking through a book about war. I gradually shuffled nearer to him but he didn't look up or remark on my inappropriate behaviour, even when I was so close that we were almost touching. I waved my hand in between his eyes and the book. No response. I was completely invisible to everyone except myself, although I could still be heard and felt, if Selphie was any judge.  
At the time, I didn't think about how such a thing might have happened, or what I could do with it. In actual fact, my first invisibility trip was mainly one of fear. Could I turn visible again? What if I had to stay that way for the rest of my life?

Only one way to answer that. I went back to the aisle I had hidden in, and found the gap between books. I stared fiercely at it, all the time thinking, _make me visible. Make me visible. I want to be seen._ After about a minute of this, I went back to the boy with the war-book and sidled close to him again. Nothing. No response. I was still invisible.  
Shit.  
Again, I returned to the aisle, and noticed that my heartbeat had spiked, its throb seeming to echo throughout my body. I could hear my own breathing, impossibly loud. I stuck my hand into the dark gap between shelves, groping for whatever it is that made me invisible to begin with.

"Boy, what are you doing?" The librarian was standing right behind me, her eyes shooting daggers. I felt such a powerful rush of relief that I nearly lost my balance. I quickly said some bullshit about trying to find a bookmark, but I don't think she bought it. For one thing, she'd never seen me read before.  
She sighed. "Lunchtime's nearly over. Go out and get some sunshine." She didn't move, so I did.

On the way out, I saw the boy with the book and felt bizarrely mischievous. I slid up to him in much the same fashion as I had when I'd been invisible. This time, before I'd even got within a foot of him, he gave me an alarmed look and took a few steps away from me.  
I flashed a slasher smile at him. "You like wars, eh? You know about the Hollow Bastion war, right?"  
He must have been easily intimidated, or maybe I was just being super creepy, because he became even more frightened. "Sure. Who doesn't?  
"Who doesn't?" I echoed. "You should go down to the graveyard sometime. It's very pretty. Might even find a few veterans—living ones, that is." The boy was casting glances over his shoulder, as though hoping an adult would appear to save the day. I gave him a friendly pat on the arm.  
"You take care now," I said with another wry grin and left him to his book. Maybe there would be some new rumours about Roxas, about him being a creepy gay cradle-robber. I'd like to see Axel's reaction to that.

The librarian had been right—lunchtime _was _nearly over, and just as I was halfway to the oval the bell blared. It didn't seem as loud as it had this morning. Time for Biology. Both Namine and Axel took this class, and Arashi too, when she was here. We took it because few other people did, preferring Human Biology, and because it's a way easier subject than most people think it is. Human Biology is all about memorizing stuff, like all the bones in the human body, whereas Biology is mostly application. Well, that's why Axel, Arashi and I took it, on Axel's older friend Isa's advice. Namine's a nature-lover. Also, the teacher happens to be the most scatterbrained old bird I'd ever had the fortune to meet. Most people can't stand her because she always forgets about homework, reports, assignments, tests and experiments. I love her for precisely the same reasons.  
Plus, she at least had not changed over the last two weeks. I don't think she even realized I'd gone—she just marks everyone as "present" on the roll call without ever checking. Bonus number three: a free period if you want it.

The entire class consisted, as usual, of the teacher spending the first fifteen minutes trying to explain something to us—the capture-recapture formula, in this case—before losing track of her speech several times and just telling us to read our textbook. The eight or so people in the class happily settled into doing their own thing. Namine shot her usual look of disdain at the teacher, who appeared to be playing solitaire on her laptop, before turning to me.  
"Where were you at lunch, Roxas? We were looking for you."  
"Library," I said, idly examining a picture in my textbook showing the evolution of mammals. "Catching up on work."  
"Seriously?" Axel said, eyes mockingly wide. "Roxas, doing homework? For stuff that doesn't even have an impact on your marks?"

"Noise down please, Lea," Biology Teacher—I don't remember her name, don't think she ever told us—said dreamily. "I'm trying to concentrate."  
"It's not _Lea,"_ Axel hissed under his breath. It is, though. Lea is his birth name, and he's resented his parents for it ever since. It's actually pronounced like it's spelt—Le-ah—in the language where it comes from, Japanese katakana. (Not that either of his parents are Japanese—they're just like that.) To get around this misfortune, until the start of high school everyone just pronounced it Lee. Then he decided that it still wasn't masculine enough and, no doubt taking inspiration from me, jumbled it around, added an X and became Axel. Anyone who called him different is just begging for a punch. Hey, at least his name is original. Mine came from my parents jumbling up my _brother_'s name and adding an X. No, I really don't know why, neither does Sora. Except that the only name you can really get from "Sora" without the X is "Rosa" and even _they _wouldn't do that to me. Apparently Namine's name means something in Japanese, too, but I've forgotten and I don't have the courage to admit that to her. In her folks' defence, though, she was born in Osaka. I think.

"What were you _really_ doing?" Axel demanded in a whisper that was probably louder than his normal voice. "Were you avoiding us?" Namine was pretending not to listen, her eyes fixed on the textbook, but I could practically see her ears quivering.  
"I just needed some space," I said quietly. "That's all. It's nothing to do with either of you."  
Axel pulled out the knife from his pocket and began playing with it. Namine shot him a horrified glance. He ignored this and turned back to me. "You want to come over my house after school?"  
"Not today. I'm going to the cemetery."  
He seemed to accept this, and I felt a rush of gratitude when neither of them offered to go with me, perhaps understanding why I wouldn't want them there. We talked about small things for the rest of the lesson—sports, what I'd missed in the social calendar, et all.

Finally the bell rang and I quickly gathered up my things and was out the door first. Axel and Namine were both picked up by their parents, so I said goodbye to them there and jumped on the bus. I had a thought while I waited for it to go, and I pulled out my phone to send a text to Sora.  
_Going to cemetery. Might be late. –Roxas.  
_I got a text back about five seconds later. _Be back before dark please.  
_There. See? I was getting better. Still a shitty friend and brother, but at least one who lets people know where he is. (For future reference, reader, always give someone the general idea of where you are, even if you want to be alone. If you get kidnapped, the police will begin looking for you faster if they know you're not where you said you'd be.)

I'm not sure if there's anywhere more beautiful in the world than the Hollow Bastion Cemetery, although as I haven't been many places in the world it's not much of a commendation. I'm still not sure why they built it where it was, right in the middle of Graylands, the failed industrial district. The suburb is littered with old steel mills and undeveloped blocks squeezed in with blighted housing. It reeks of metal and smoke.  
Perched on the other side of the road from the graveyard is the psychiatric hospital, which Sora informs me I must not call an asylum under any circumstances. It has a grim reputation; Sora tells me this is undeserved, that the place is well-staffed and serviced, and that it's only seen badly because of a few crazies with knives some years ago. Sora's done some technical work for them, and that's where he met Kairi.

The cemetery, though—it's about a square kilometre in size and most of it is, strangely, trees. The graves, just simple white stones with names, are hidden in little clearings throughout the forest. They're all connected with a series of paths. There's a large lake in the centre, studded with lily pads, ringed by fallen logs and tree stumps. There are beds of beautiful flowers arranged into the shapes of crosses, and perched on a hill in the centre is the memorial flame which flickers and dances in the shadows.

That was their wish, you see. The soldiers who were sent in to reclaim Hollow Bastion fought their battles mainly on a vast plain in the middle of summer. It must have been hell, because the temperatures there can easily hit 42 degrees on a normal day. When they finally came back, the survivors asked the government for their comrades to be buried in the cool shade. It was the heat they hated most of all, and they didn't want the fallen to suffer in it. I'm not sure if many people understood their reasoning, but even fewer wanted to offend them after all they'd done. So the cemetery was built, and it remains quite a popular spot for walks and navel-contemplating.

I made my way to Xion's grave, but someone was already there, virtually hidden between the flowering shrubs Sora and I had planted.  
"Hey, Roxas," Arashi said sleepily, shading her eyes with one hand. Her clothes were muddy and torn, and there was a bruise under one of her soft brown eyes. She flicked back a lock of black hair. "Thought you might drop by here."  
For a few seconds I simply stared. I hadn't even known Arashi knew where this place was. Hell, I wouldn't have thought she knew that Xion had even died. "How'd you find this place?"  
"Axel," was all she said, and leaned back against the tombstone. "Xion was your sister, wasn't she?"  
"Yeah, my twin," I replied, and sat down next to her. The small forest clearing was perfumed with the scent of earth and flowers.  
"That's pretty sad."  
I glanced sideways at her, feeling a brief flash of irritation. Then the weariness descended on my shoulders again. "I guess so."  
"How'd she die?"  
"Axel didn't tell you?"  
"No. He was kinda…sketched out, I guess. In one of his funny moods…"  
"Oh. Well—Xion was murdered."  
Arashi didn't even blink. "Sad," she repeated. She didn't ask why, even though I probably would have told her.

A slightly awkward silence blossomed between us.  
"So, um…you didn't come to school today."  
She shook her head. "Nope. Didn't want to. Nothing important was gonna happen."  
"I came back," I said, trying not to sound put out. "You don't think I'm important?"  
Arashi poked me with a stalk of grass. "Of course you are, but I didn't know you'd be back." She glanced up at the sky. "It's nice, here. Really quiet, and easy to hide in. Besides, I knew you'd show up if I stayed here long enough. Did you plant all these flowers?"  
"Well, me and Sora."  
"That's your older brother, yeah? I've seen him. He's cute." She chewed on this for a few moments. "So is that why you weren't at school? Because your sister was dead?"  
"Uh-huh."  
"Oh. I thought maybe you were just bored of coming. I didn't think you liked school all that much."  
I chuckled a bit at that. "Rash, not everyone's like you. I can't just skip school. Sora would kill me." I paused for a moment. "Don't your parents get concerned over you missing school?"  
"Nah. I told them I've learnt all the important stuff already. Besides, I've already got an apprenticeship secured. Hairdressing, you know?"  
"Really?" I sat up straighter. "Rash, that's fantastic! Why didn't you tell me?"  
"I did!" She frowned. "At least, I thought I did. Maybe I only dreamed it." She stood up and brushed some of the dirt from her bottom.

"Hey, Arashi," I began, trying to sound casual. "Do you believe in invisibility? Like, someone becoming unseen?"  
"Well, sure. They invented an invisibility cloak not too long ago. Well, it's not really an invisibility cloak, because it only stops microwave light. But physicists say it's possible to make one that stops visible light."  
"Really?" I said, my heart beginning to beat faster.  
"Yeah." Any other person would have probably asked why I was suddenly so interested in invisibility, but not Arashi. Sometimes, I get the feeling that Arashi lives in a world entirely of her own creation, where she's the only real thing in it. Everyone else is just amusing little computer simulations designed to make her smile.  
"Are you getting a job, Roxas?" she asked suddenly, half-turning towards me.  
I frowned, slightly thrown by the change in topic. "Um. I hadn't thought about it. Why?"  
"You should have one. I don't think it's cheap to raise an adolescent teenager, so Sora might be struggling."  
I narrowed my eyes a little at that. "Are you calling me a deadweight?"  
"I guess."  
You can't get angry at Arashi for saying things like that. She just tells you what she thinks, straight out.  
"All right, supposing I do want a job, where would I look for one? There's not much of an economy for me out there." This is true. I've hit the age where nobody wants to hire you unless you've got some prior experience, and I didn't have any.  
"There's the coffee shop. I saw a sign saying they wanted people around our age. It would be good fun, I think."  
"Not much point for us both to apply, though, really."  
"Oh, I'm not applying. I told you, I have my hairdressing apprenticeship. I'll make plenty from that."  
"Yeah, well…I'll think about it." I stood up and brushed the soil off my pants before turning to Xion's grave and crouching slightly.

"How are you, little sister?" I whispered to her, even though it didn't look like Arashi was listening. "Is it nice up there, wherever you are? I hope you can hear me, because I'm gonna feel pretty stupid if you can't." I felt tears build up behind my eyes and I surreptitiously tried to wipe them away. I never cried. Not even when Sora rang me up to tell me that Xion was gone, I hadn't cried. Crying is just letting the world know that it's won.  
"I went back to school today," I continued. "Hardly anything's changed, do you know that? Well, something's changed. I'm gonna try hard in school for once. Learn how to science." I tried to smile at her, just in case she could see me as well. "Who knows? Maybe I'll learn how to read next. Sounds like an important skill." I reached out and touched the engraved letters of her name. "Don't worry about me, I'm doing fine. Sora and I are looking out for each other. So you just get comfortable where you are and have fun." I blew a kiss to her before straightening up. For a few seconds I just watched her: my sister, who was born forty-five minutes after me, who liked books and metalworking and ice-cream, who should be standing with me now and not sleeping under the earth.  
Then I said goodbye to Arashi and walked away.

Arashi remained behind, for whatever reason, so I was alone when I reached the gate to the graveyard. Leaning against the gate, my eyes found the Graylands Hospital and saw a car pull out of the parking lot. It went a few metres past me before the driver recognized my face.  
"Roxas!" Kairi braked sharply and pulled up next to the pavement. "How are you, kid?"  
I don't like being called "kid" but I also don't like upsetting Kairi, so I just smiled and gave her a little wave while walking over to her. "I'm okay. You?"  
"Oh, it's been a tough day." Kairi is beautiful, with long reddish-brown hair and violet eyes. She's Namine's older sister and the two have very similar eyes and shaped-faces. Unlike Namine, who always seems fragile, Kairi radiates an aura of inner toughness. It comes from working at a mental hospital, I suppose.  
"Nothing terrible, though?" I asked her, kissing her on her cheek. She gave my shoulder a squeeze in response.  
"No, no, nothing awful. Say, do you need a ride? I was going to see Sora anyway, so it's no trouble."  
"I would, thanks," I said with a polite smile. She jerked her head to the back seat. "Hop in."  
For a moment I felt slightly put out that she wasn't going to give me the front seat, but as I sat in, I noticed that there was another person already there. He was tall with long, nearly-white hair and aquamarine eyes.

"Hey, Riku," I said, and now my politeness became a bit forced. We don't get on. I don't think we were ever really friendly, but it got worse when I broke his wrist in a sort-of-accident. It never healed properly, so even now it's a bit crooked.  
He just gave me a bit of a nod in return and leaned back in his seat. He started up a conversation with Kairi that lasted the entire journey home, which I was pretty grateful for. The moment the car pulled up into our drive, I thanked Kairi and jumped out, wanting to see Sora first.  
Sora was in the kitchen, and he gave me his usual bright grin. He's actually four years older than me, although he doesn't look it. People like Sora are destined to seem eternally young, methinks. He tousled my hair—blonde and styled, not dark brown and spiky like his. Our eyes are identical, though, a shade of brilliant ocean blue.  
"School was all right?" I nodded, and he looked slightly triumphant. Bully for him. "Riku and Kairi are about to show up," I informed him, and his smile was replaced by something like panic.  
"Kairi? But she never said—I look terrible—"  
"You're fine," I replied, half-laughing. "Go out, have dinner, have fun."  
"Maybe," Sora said, trying to tame his hair with his fingers. "But will you be all right on your own?"  
I sighed. "Sora, I'm fifteen. Dad was leaving you at home heaps younger than that. I'll put some lasagne on and do my homework." In truth, I felt like some solitude for a while.

"Ring-ring!" Kairi said at the door, half-laughing. "Earth to Sora!" Sora knocked the fruit bowl to the floor in his haste to get there. Luckily, ours is made of wood. I carefully straightened things up and went to my room, realizing on the way that I had nothing in particular to do. So I took out the science book Stocoletti had given me and began to read, half-listening for the voices to fade.

_Lightning refers to the phenomenon of a massive static discharge between an area of two opposite charges. The lightning flash we can see is an effect of the regions attempting to equalize. Most lightning occurs from cloud-to-cloud or within the cloud, but about 25% is from cloud-to-ground. It is not fully understood how a thunderstorm can separate charges within itself…  
…in the case of positive lightning, the lightning is produced from the top of the cloud instead of the bottom, and thus can strike several miles away from the actual storm in what is known as a "bolt from the blue." Because of the greater distance such bolts need to travel, they store higher chargers and are therefore more powerful and dangerous, capable of destroying aircraft.  
…dark lightning, recently discovered, refers to an electrical discharge that produces little or no light due to the breaking down of anti-matter within a storm...  
…thunder is caused as an effect of the strike; the air around the lightning is super-heated and thus a shockwave is formed that is audible as sound…  
…after flooding, the most common cause of death due to weather…_

* * *

**NB: Graylands is a real place, as is the mental hospital, although it is different from how I have described it. The Hollow Bastion Cemetery is based on the Sandokan War Memorial in Sandokan, Borneo. Everything else is purely made up.**


End file.
